Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Tatum spread more files across the desk in her temporary quarters at the Society, but stared out at the river.
She'd been at it for two hours. The same names, the same shell companies, the same offshore accounts threading through the same labyrinthine structures.
Every time she thought she'd found a new angle, it led to another dead end.
Whoever had built this had been meticulous.
Patient. The kind of patience that came from knowing you were untouchable.
She picked up her coffee, found it cold, and, with a grimace, set it back down.
Her phone buzzed.
Got more files for you. Bank records. Ryker will deliver a thumb drive to you.
Archer. No greeting, no preamble. No hope you’re having a good day, baby. Just information delivered and done. She stared at the text for a moment longer than she needed to, absorbing the sting of his emotionless words. Would a kind word hurt?
Thanks, she typed back, because anything else felt like a confession. As if the fact that she’d been thinking about him non-stop might leak into the text and tell him she cared.
Okay, she was officially losing it. Her first thought should have been about where or how Archer had gotten the new files. Instead, she was wondering why he didn’t ask how she was. Stupid.
She closed her laptop, rolled her shoulders, and texted Ryker.
Archer says you have something for me.
His reply came back almost immediately. Yes. I'm in the medical area checking on someone. Billiard room is halfway. Meet me there in ten?
See you there.
She pulled on her cardigan, tucked her phone into her pocket, and headed out.
The Society was quiet at this hour, the kind of hush that came with thick carpets and carefully controlled lighting.
It was mid-afternoon. Too late for the lunch crowd and too early for the drinks after work crowd.
She passed the restaurant, closed between service, although food was always available if someone asked for it.
Then she went by the reading room where a single elderly gentleman sat asleep in a wing chair, a newspaper splayed open across his chest. The billiard room was down the next corridor, past the smaller of the two lounges.
Ryker was there leaning against the billiard table, typing on his phone when she walked in. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” Tatum said.
Ryker waved her off. “No problem.” He pulled a thumb drive out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Here you go. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled as she glanced at it. “Do you know where Archer got the information on it?”
Ryker paused and cocked an eyebrow. “Tatum, surely as a board member, you know better than to ask such questions.”
Tatum sighed. “I know, I know. But it was worth a shot. It’s just I’ve been working on this for a while and—"
“You’re frustrated that Archer just came up with a bunch of stuff you haven’t seen,” Ryker supplied.
Tatum shrugged. “Well, I don’t know if I’ve seen it yet since I don’t know what’s on this, but essentially”—she met his gaze—“yes.”
“Yeah, it pisses us off too,” Ryker said with a grin. “Every time I think I’m ahead of him, it turns out I’m miles behind. You get used to it.”
His phone beeped, and he glanced at the screen. “Gotta run. Let me or Rush know if you need anything.”
“Will do,” Tatum confirmed and then watched him leave the room.
She stared at the thumb drive for a moment. There was definitely stuff she hadn’t seen on it. She knew it in her bones. Time to go back to work. Maybe this would break things open. Maybe this would lead to the Curator.
Tatum started to retrace her route. She hadn’t been sure she believed the Curator was the one behind the whole Granite Industries thing until she’d heard Vince Kelly earlier. It wasn’t just what he said, although that was scary enough; it was how he said it.
Vince Kelly certainly believed Davis and Anderson were involved in human trafficking.
If it were them, then they’d killed two men to keep their secret and tried to kidnap her.
Deep down, she knew neither of them was the Curator.
They just didn’t have the right level of cold to pull it off.
But the Curator being behind the whole Granite Industries thing made perfect sense.
What better way to get paid and launder the money than to set up a fake investment scenario?
Hell, they could even pay tax if they wanted to, and no one would look twice. Just another company selling a service.
Except Lebowitz had other ideas, and he had put the whole thing in jeopardy. It wasn’t a mystery why they killed him, or North, for that matter. She had no doubt that Vince Kelly’s days were numbered as well unless she figured out who the Curator was.
Tatum yawned suddenly. The lack of sleep was definitely catching up with her.
She decided to stop for coffee on the way back to her apartment.
The lounge had a self-service coffee bar along the far wall, and she needed something hot if she was going to spend another two hours staring at bank records.
She walked in and headed to the coffee station. Movement caught her eye.
He was sitting in the chair by the window.
Stuart Wellington looked up from his phone as she entered, and for just a moment neither of them said anything. He was immaculate as always, gray suit, silver tie, the kind of put-together that looked effortless and cost a great deal of money. His face gave nothing away. It never did.
"Tatum," he said.
"Stuart." She kept her voice level and crossed to the coffee station. Her back burned where she was sure his stare was boring into her. Ignoring the sensation, she took a cup and filled it, buying herself a few seconds to settle.
"Sit down," he said.
"I'm on my way somewhere."
"Sit down, Tatum."
She turned. He hadn't raised his voice. He never raised his voice. That was what made it so effective.
She sat.
He set his phone on the side table and looked at her with the particular expression she had feared since childhood, not anger exactly, something more calculated than that. Controlled displeasure. The kind that came with consequences attached.
"The Anderson case," he said.
Her stomach tightened. "No."
"That isn't a negotiation."
"I know it isn't. My answer is still no."
Stuart's jaw moved slightly. "Lou Anderson is a significant client of our firm, Tatum. He has been for fifteen years. He expects our best representation, and our best representation is you. You will take the case."
"I won't defend a man who assaulted his employee," she said evenly.
"I've told you that." She wanted to tell her father that Anderson had done much more than that, if Vince Kelly could be believed, and that her father needed to dump Anderson as a client immediately. But now wasn’t the time, since she still needed proof.
Undeniable proof, if she had any hope of swaying Stuart Wellington at all.
"What you will and won't do," Stuart said, his voice dropping just slightly, "is not entirely your decision. Not while you are a partner at Wellington, Wellington, and Smith. Not while you carry that name."
She felt it then, the old familiar cold that started in her chest and worked its way outward. The feeling of being very small in a very large room with no way out. She gripped her coffee cup.
"I'm asking you to reconsider," she said carefully.
He dismissed her request with a flick of his wrist. "That isn’t happening.
I'm telling you. You will take the Anderson case.
You will do it without complaint. And you will stop this pointless crusade with the Granite Industries victims, because it is damaging your reputation, and by extension, the firm's reputation. I will not allow it to continue."
"You can't—"
"I can," he said simply. "And I will. Don't make me demonstrate how."
The threat sat between them, as neat and quiet as everything else about Stuart Wellington. She opened her mouth.
"I wasn't aware," a voice said from the doorway, "that threatening people was something we did in the Society."
Archer walked in.
He wasn't hurrying. That man did cold better than an iceberg. He moved to the coffee station with the nonchalant ease of a man who owned the room, which in every way that mattered, he did, and poured himself a cup. Then he turned and looked at Stuart.
"Threatening a member is grounds for membership review," he said conversationally. "Threatening a board member is something else entirely." He sipped his coffee. "Something with considerably worse consequences."
Stuart looked at him. Something passed between the two men that had no words attached to it, a recognition, a measuring. Two people who understood each other completely and had no intention of pretending otherwise.
"Archer," Stuart said, his voice perfectly pleasant. "Eavesdropping is not polite. You would be best served to stay out of other people’s business."
"Members’ business is my business," Archer said. "That's rather the point of my job. To make sure no one abuses the rules. Now that would be beyond rude." He glanced at Tatum. "Ready?"
She was on her feet before she'd consciously decided to stand. "Yes."
She didn't look at her father as she walked to the door. She felt his eyes on her back the entire way.
In the corridor, Archer fell into step beside her. He didn't say anything for a moment, and she was grateful for that.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Fine," she said, and then, because it was him and she was tired of performing, "No. Not really."
He nodded once. That was all. No follow-up questions, no reassurances. Just the acknowledgment of it, and then they kept walking. And somehow that was exactly right.
They walked back toward Tatum's apartment. The corridor was still quiet. The elderly gentleman in the reading room was still asleep.
"What's on the drive?" she asked.
"Bank records," Archer said. "A source came through." He glanced at her. "There are transfers I couldn't trace before. Accounts we hadn't seen. If the pattern holds, they'll point to at least one more player we haven't identified yet."
"How many layers does this thing have?" she muttered.
"As many as whoever built it thought they needed." He paused. "Which tells you something about how frightened they are of being found."
She thought about that. "Or how confident they are that they won't be."
His targeted look was filled with approval. "Yes," he said. "That too."
They stopped outside her door. She got her key out and unlocked it, then turned back to him. He was watching her with that quiet, assessing attention of his, the kind that saw more than she was comfortable with.
"Thank you," she said. "For in there. With Stuart. My father can be…" She didn’t finish, because she wasn’t really ready to explain it all to Archer. She wasn’t even sure he would want to know. But she knew he’d understand.
Archer frowned. "He had no business threatening you."
"He's been doing it my whole life," she said. It came out more tired than she intended.
Something shifted in Archer's expression. Not much. Just enough. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair back from her face, a gesture so brief and gentle it was almost nothing, and then he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She closed her eyes.
"Get some rest when you can," he said quietly.
She opened her eyes. He had already stepped back, the careful distance restored, the controlled composure back in place.
"I'll let you know what I find," she said.
He nodded. "I know you will."
He turned and walked back down the corridor, unhurried, and she watched him until he turned the corner and was gone.
She stood there for a moment in the quiet hallway.
Then she went inside, sat down at her desk, and plugged in the thumb drive. Here goes nothin’.